CHAPTER
TWENTY
“A man’s kiss is his signature.”
~May West
PRESENT
I was striding across the cemetery, had nearly made it to the car when Dante caught up to me.
“Don’t,” I told him when he fell in beside me. “Don’t involve yourself in my issues. Just. Don’t. It’s not your job to defend me.”
“Since when?”
I shuddered. Hello, temper. “Since you dumped me.”
“I didn’t dump you.” He sounded upset, which upset me.
“I didn’t dump you,” he repeated when I didn’t respond.
“Are you trying to pick a fight?” I asked him pointedly. He had, after all, been the one to declare this a day of peace between the two of us.
He set his jaw and fell quiet. Good.
I thought and hoped that he’d just stay quiet, but about halfway back to the house he pulled the car over onto the shoulder suddenly, putting the car in park.
He gripped the steering wheel with both hands and lay his forehead against it.
“God, I don’t want to do this,” he spoke quietly, not turning his head. “I don’t want to deal with those people being in her home, talking about her, pretending to care, most of them just waiting to see what she left them in the will.”
What he’d said didn’t need a response. He knew how I felt about those people.
“And if one of them says an insulting word to you, so help me, God—“
“Let’s just get home and get it over with,” I cut in, speaking to the window. “And besides, the sooner we get there the sooner I can have a drink.”
One plus for the day—liquor. It would be flowing freely for this ill-fated gathering, I had no doubt.
“Yeah, okay,” he said dejectedly. “Just give me a minute. I need to get a grip.”
I was fine with that, because I thought he meant to just leave him to his thoughts for a minute.
He didn’t mean that, it was quickly clear.
He started tugging on my arm, and I looked at him. He wasn’t leaning on the steering wheel anymore. Now he was leaning toward me.
“What are you doing?” I asked him warily.
His answer was to keep tugging me to him, not stopping until my resistant head was pressed to his faithless chest.
Still without speaking, he started stroking my hair.
“Stop it,” I demanded.
He kissed the top of my head and kept stroking, a soothing, familiar motion, his heavy hand moving with just the perfect amount of pressure from my temple to the ends of my long hair.
Perfect because he’d done it a thousand times. More. This used to be how he’d soothe me down from a temper.
“Stop it,” I repeated faintly.
Just like the bastard to declare a truce and then launch an attack.
And somehow it was working. I was leaning into him, relaxing into his familiar embrace.
I caught myself and tried to push away.
He wouldn’t let me. And he was stronger than me, the bastard.
I struggled harder, then harder. It did me not one bit of good. He held me to him easily, both of my wrists captured in one of his hands.
He knew me, knew how I fought. The first thing he’d done was restrain my hands, or more specifically, my vicious nails.
“Why are you doing this?” I panted at him. I was still struggling, but not as hard now. I’d quickly worn myself out.
“Why won’t you let me comfort you?” he said, the words mumbled into the top of my head.
I don’t know how, I thought. Even if I wanted that, wanted to pretend with you long enough to feel better, I don’t know how.
But I said none of it. Instead I kept on struggling in his hold.
Finally he let me go, and I turned away from him to stare back out the window.
“You were always like this.” His tone was fond, damn him. “Even when you were just a scrappy little kid. Always so extreme. You take things either with a stoic face or you lose your mind. Never any middle ground. I miss that, you know. You always challenged me.”
I had nothing to say to that.
“But today,” he continued, voice going softer with a tender emotion that he had no right to, “give me some middle ground. Let me comfort you, or at least, comfort me.”
“Please,” he said, closer now. “Comfort me.”
I blame the please. Hearing that word coming from those lips was hopelessly disarming to me, so when he pulled me to him again, I didn’t fight him. I laid my head over his black, traitorous heart, and let the tears fall.
I was weary of trying to suppress them, and they came out freely for a time as I quietly sobbed against my enemy’s chest.
How could you find comfort in the soul that had shattered you?
I didn’t know, but perversely, I found it anyway.
Eventually I pulled back, not looking up at him, eyes trained on the wet spot I’d left on his beautiful suit jacket.
My hands went to my face, feeling at my cheeks as I realized that my makeup was in ruins.
“I’ll need to go upstairs and redo my makeup when we get back,” I said blankly. My mind was worrying about something small in an effort to avoid thinking about something big.
“Well, there’s no hurry. The bloodsuckers will be there all day I’m sure,” he murmured, and not so much the words but his proximity had me stiffening.
His face was moving closer to mine, then closer. His hands cupped my face, angling it up to his.
I kept my gaze pointed down, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t concerned with my eyes. He wanted my lips.
He took them unrepentantly, passionately, devouring me like he always did, as though he’d never have enough.
And I let him have them, the fight gone out of me. I’d always had a weakness for his kiss. That’s why I hated them so vehemently.
I started shifting, falling against my seat back, though there wasn’t far to go.
It was the damnedest thing. Every time he kissed me, all I wanted to do was lie down flat on my back. That urge was quickly followed by one to open my arms, and then my legs.
It was a natural inclination. Instinctual and all the more powerful for it.